The Halifax 21st are mostly a team of complete freaks this year. There are so many misfits and weirdos on their roster, many wonder how they have even managed to win a game at all. To start off, I will talk about the forwards. John Madden was projected to be the team's best player this season is the captain and has first line duties and everything. Seems normal enough, until you consider the fact that of all the players on the team this season, he has been the only one who doesn't have a point yet. Viktor Kozlov is a giant enforcer from Russia. He stands 6'8 and weighs 220 lb. and shares the tallness role with a guy who is easily Halifax's best defenseman and arguably their best player, Bolt Vanderhuge, a 6'8, 250 lb. player from South Africa. It is said that hockey isn't even Vanderhuge's number 1 sport and that this giant is actually better at basketball. He is the largest man in the league this year. On the top pairing with Vanderhuge is Elasmobranch Fish, a Spaniard who just learned how to skate for the first time last week and doesn't really know anything about how to play hockey. On the second pairing, Halifax has the recently signed Bald Guy, a player who is only 5'5 but weighs an astonishing 250 lb. If you aren't thinking Sumo Wrestler already, this is confirmed by the fact that Guy is from Japan. All these odd ducks and yet the 21st actually have an above average record of 5-2-1. Halifax is a team of misfits, which is similar to what the Vegas Golden Knights were being called when they first joined the NHL. 2 years ago, people compared Halifax to Vegas for making the finals as an expansion team. It seems the similarities are in too great numbers to ignore, but Halifax has yet to find their Mark-Andre Fleury.

Full Name: Gritty Position: C Age: 19 Height (inches): 6'3" Weight (lbs.): 197 lbs Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Intro
Despite only becoming a mascot a few moons ago, Gritty is already without a doubt the greatest mascot in the history of history. However, Gritty got bored of just being a mascot, and decided to take his hockey talents to an alternative league in the VHL. Read on to figure out how the greatest thing since sliced bread came to be.
Early Life
Gritty was born in a tragic accident involving two unknown NHL mascots and a hot dog launcher. It is rumored the first thing he picked up was a hockey stick, but instead of using it to hit pucks, he most enjoyed hitting people with it. Gritty's wild imagination and play with hockey sticks resulted in multiple pre-schools kicking Gritty out of their daycare, as parents complained when Gritty gave their children a black eye. After being banned from his fifth straight preschool, Gritty saw the disappointment in his parents eyes and vowed to himself that he would always be a team-player who placed others above himself, hence honoring his surname, Gritty.
This smart kid put on the pads when he saw Gritty with the hockey stick
As Gritty continued to grow up, he had trouble making friends due to his unique appearance. The only time Gritty truly felt at peace was on the hockey rink, and his parents happily obliged, as it meant the coach could babysit their little terror for a few hours. Gritty was a star for the Philadelphia Little Quakers in middle school, as he led the team in points by a large margin, and the coach appreciated all the hard work he put in on and off the ice. The only problem with Gritty was his anger management, as he by far lead the team in penalty minutes, with opposing middle schoolers getting under his skin with yo mamma jokes, making fun of his shot in Fortnite, and yelling dank memes at him.
High School
Gritty remained a hockey star in high school, as he played for the German High School Patriots, becoming team captain in only his Sophomore year due to his grit and determination. Gritty was by far good enough to develop in the Canadian Hockey League system, but visa issues due to him being a mascot rather than a person stopped this from ever occurring. Instead, Gritty got to dominate a lot of little high school punks. If you have ever seen Gritty play with the mites on ice at a Flyers game, that is essentially what it was like for him, as no one else on the ice could match his physicality. However, this dominance is actually a detriment to Gritty's current game now, as he is used to just being much larger and faster than everyone else versus being a technician who is great with the puck on his stick.
At this point in his life, Gritty was already a great mascot, but his heart remained in being a hockey player as well. Due to being a mascot in the NHL, Gritty knew that would not be a possibility for him, so he instead decided to bless the superior VHL with his presence. On November 20th, 2018, Gritty officially declared himself a free agent in the VHLM, and would soon make a decision on which team to sign with and begin his VHL career.
Entry to the VHLM
24 hours after his declaration for the VHLM, only one team officially made Gritty an offer, making his decision simple, as he signed with the Ottawa Lynx. The Halifax 21st also unofficially made Gritty an offer, but it appears that was a mixup with their fax machines, because fax machines are still a thing in 2019 for some reason. Gritty did not have much of an impact on the Lynx last season, as he only managed a few points. However, his leadership on the ice helped Ottawa become a surprise cup-contender, as they made it all the way to the finals before eventually losing.
Gritty evidently made a positive impression on the Ottawa Lynx GM, as he was selected by them in the third round of the S64 VHLM Dispersal Draft. Gritty has turned into a third-round steal for the Lynx, as he is already at 125 tpe in this young season, and will surely hit the tpe cap by the time playoffs roll around. Gritty is also among the team leaders in points for the Lynx, and is currently playing on Ottawa's second line, with a shot to be on the first line by the time the season is over.
Conclusion
A lot of factors contributed to getting Gritty where he is today. He was emotionally impacted by his preschool troubles, and vowed to himself to always be a team player after seeing how sad his parents were during those transgressions. Throughout his young life, Gritty has used hockey as an outlet to go through his frustrations, and all his time on the ice shows as he is one of the strongest and fastest out there at all times. Unfortunately, Gritty never had great coaching due to being unable to join any Canadian developmental leagues, leaving his puck handling and shooting skills lackluster. Gritty has vowed to become a much better puck handler, as he works on it a ton in practice now, and has read articles on how puck handling is one of the most important traits for players to score points. It will be interesting to see where Gritty is drafted in the S65 VHL Draft, as many past players from the Eaglesfan agency have fizzled out and been busts. However, the Eaglesfan agency once created solid and reliable players such as Tim TebowGow and RGIII, and there is a chance this happens again with Gritty. I would be shocked if he is not selected in the 1st round, as he currently has the 6th most tpe in his draft class, and will use his grit and determination to rise up the ranks.

The Ottawa Lynx, last season's surprise finalists after a cup win the season before, came into this draft with a renewed sense of strength, a true belief that they could win another cup and make it 2 cups and 3 finals in 3 seasons. After draft night, the hype has only gotten more real. Let's take a look at who all was added to the roster on this historic night for the Lynx franchise and for the city of Ottawa.
Prior to the draft entirely, the Lynx' night started with a trade. This trade would send Yukon's two remaining picks over to Ottawa, 6th and 8th overall, in exchange for Ottawa's 1st and 2nd rounders next season. This is a classic case of Ottawa GM Jason Glasser banking on himself and his team, as the value of the trade will be determined by where the Lynx finish in the standings. With this haul, Ottawa held 4 picks in a 5 pick span around the turn of the round, 5/6/8/9. This allowed the team to put into place the plans that had been discussed with Glasser and the newly hired AGM @Esso2264. From the very beginning, there were two guys Ottawa had been looking at: the first would have been Carles Puigdemont when the team held the 2nd overall pick. The other, someone who was on Ottawa's radar partially because he'd played the final few games with Ottawa the season before and the team liked his production, was Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen. GM Glasser began to float the idea around of trading down in the first round and picking up an extra pick, hoping to still land Werbenjagermanjensen and also grab another piece later on if that was the route chosen. Ultimately, upon discovering that Puigdemont wasn't going to be available at 2 either way, it was solidified that the trade was going to happen, and fortunately Oslo wanted to secure who they saw as the best goalie value in the draft at 2, Divaani Sohva. Oslo gave Ottawa 5th overall which was a late first rounder, as well as 19th overall in the early fourth, in exchange for the pick.
When the actual draft arrived, there was one pick Ottawa felt we had to dodge: 3rd overall to Las Vegas. Since the other three picks ahead of ours were held by Oslo, with whom we'd discussed mutual plans, we were confident if Werbenjagermanjensen survived past that pick, we would land him. When Vegas' pick occurred, they selected Matthew Materazo, certainly a worthwhile choice (and someone I'd considered bringing in with the early 2nd rounders had he fallen there) but it meant we had our guy. In the trade discussions, it wasn't outright stated that Oslo would be taking a different defenseman specifically with 4 (they'd mentioned having a defenseman in mind to take, but neither who, nor with which pick) but it seemed likely given the direction of the first two picks that one would be going there. I'd mentally penciled in Evgeni Komarov; imagine my surprise when the Oslo representative walked up to the podium and announced Donat Szita. Given the scarcity of defense in this league, that immediately made the 6th selection perfectly clear. Werbenjagermanjensen had arrived at our expected 5th overall, and a gift wrapped Komarov was sitting on our doorstep at 6th.
With two defensemen drafted and one more already with the team in Gregor Rasputinov (well, two with Braeden Turner, but he might become cut fodder sooner rather than later) it appeared to be time to turn our attentions to the offense. Reliable VHLM mainstay Chance Matthews would be returning to the team once more, but after that the quality was set to drop significantly, so it was decided that the next few picks would be forwards. Opening up the second round with the 7th overall pick, Oslo selected Dallas Jones - it was a safe bet Jones would go to Oslo, given his affiliation with the GM, but not specifically when the trigger would be pulled. Jones going at 7th gave Ottawa our pick of the entire board of forwards, twice. Strictly based on TPE at the time of the pick, the selection of Katie Warren at 8th might have been off the board a little, but her affiliation with the former Halifax GM and the current Davos GM made her a safe pick and one that arguably could have been higher if the board had been populated by a wider array of teams. The next selection of Roll Fizzlebeef fit a little more closely to the draft board, so to speak, and also brought in a guy who had some time to develop at the end of last season.
The next 5 selections, comprising the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd, were entirely Oslo and Vegas. This continued the trend that only three teams had selected at all to this point. Sven Hitz, Dorian Mason, and Rocky LaGarza would be packing their bags for the intercontinental flight, whereas Connor McDavid and promising newcomer Nico Sulerzyski would be heading to the flashing lights of Vegas. While all five players were on Ottawa's board at some point, this was a tad earlier than I saw one or two of them going, particularly the one (McDavid) who has been absent from league facilities for nearly a week. Sulerzyski, though, is a great pick for Vegas at this stage. Oslo's three are arguably safer, their floors are higher, but their ceilings are lower for the most part. Ottawa would then go on to select Gritty, another player who'd been part of the surprise playoff run and someone we'd been looking to bring back at some stage. The next selection would bring a new team into the draft, Halifax, who selected Bolt Vanderhuge, then it would go back to Oslo yet again for Josh Harris before Halifax added a second in Viktor Kozlov.
This next pick, the opening pick in the fourth round, is one of the two picks in this draft that has the greatest boom or bust potential. Well, not bust as in the player will do poorly, but bust for the sake of the team. Kyson Blake, a proven commodity and a guy who was one of the best in the VHLM last year, is right on the cusp of jumping to the VHL. This kept a lot of teams away from him, as it was assumed he'd be going up. However, I'd talked to him a bit before the draft and he intends to remain in the VHLM. Unfortunately, that's usually a joint decision between the player and the VHL GM he ends up with; since Blake hasn't been drafted into the VHL yet, we only have 50% of the information. There are some GMs out there who are already set on bringing their players up, and if Blake ends up drafted to one of those teams, it may not go as he intends. If Blake can manage to stay down, he should be the single biggest star on Ottawa, at least early while his teammates are developing. Coincidentally, Blake was selected with the other pick Ottawa gained in the swap of first rounders. As for the rest of the fourth round, well that was mostly Ottawa as well. Jack Lynch, Luke Allman, and Matthew Kai were drafted to Ottawa with three of the next four picks. Between Allman and Kai went Mitch Matthews to Vegas, and Vegas came back up again with back to back picks at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth, selecting Austen Fourier and Basaraba Moose (Moose I'd expected to go slightly earlier than this). Continuing the Ottawa-Vegas run, Ottawa would bring in Don Draper, and then Vegas would take only the second goalie of the draft in Joe Nixon, both in the first half of the fifth round.
Teagan Glover would join the Halifax 21st with the next pick, and then our final team drafting tonight, the Saskatoon Wild, would get on the board with Alexander Kachur. It was Halifax and Saskatoon again after that, with Jad Clapperton and Anton Edvin respectively - Edvin is someone who has a little more skill than most of his counterparts at this stage but has stopped going to practice and should be caught fairly quickly. Christopher Murphy, yet another promising newcomer, would be the next to join Ottawa. After Cal Davidson and Joe Yak went to Vegas and Halifax, Ottawa would bring in Jonathan Hill to fill out the defensive top four for the time being. The round would end with another former Lynx, Max Coffey, who unfortunately has been missing from league facilities for a month now - which is why the Lynx weren't too eager to snap him back up. Halifax did, however.
When I'd discussed the Blake pick, I mentioned it was one of two. This next pick is the other. Diljodh is in a similar boat to Blake, except that he'd actually said to people that he intended to go up. The uproar among the rest of the GMs in the draft room was deafening when the Oslo representative, who is affiliated with Diljodh, said they were going to take the winger and that he would stay down and play in the minors; information which directly contradicted what he'd earlier said. As with Blake though, it may not be entirely up to Diljodh, and we'll see when his VHL team drafts him what happens with him. At this stage, there weren't many options remaining (and the best one left was a goalie which we didn't need) so Ottawa would select Felix Fernandes, who had created some time ago and had been back on the site significantly more recently than his creation, which is at least something. He's also been on the discord at some point. This selection may not amount to anything, but it was surely one of the better ones out of the options available.
This leaves Ottawa's team a massive four lines deep on offense (although three can be replaced if necessary, assuming Fernandes doesn't come back), with Blake, Warren, Fizzlebeef, Gritty, Allman, Murphy, Draper, Kai, Lynch, and Fernandes joining Matthews and Ottawa journeyman-type Rzerk. It's the sign of a truly strong team that Matthews, a strong player for this level as he's proven twice now, is pushed down to fourth line duty due to the inactives rule. The top line is seemingly set for the time being with Blake, Warren, and Fizzlebeef, but the next six guys could make or break this team. If even half of them hit then we have the potential to beat the S62 offense, which seems so ridiculous on its face as to dismiss the claim outright, until you actually sit and take a look at it. That team was great. This team could be even better.
Defensively, we're not quite as overpowered, but I don't think too many teams would scoff at two pairings consisting of Werbenjagermanjensen, Komarov, Hill, and Rasputinov. If Hill can develop enough to get to where Werbenjagermanjensen and Komarov are now, this defensive top four could rival the McWolf/Kastelic/Baxter/Rasputinov set from S62, since the first two will almost certainly cap.
Last but not least, in goal, we seem to be running a trend. JB Rift joins the line of GM players to stand between the pipes for the Lynx. The S62 team saw Kallis Kriketers, now of Riga, backstop them to a cup, and toward the end of that season Kriketers' backup was the ill-fated Milan Baros, who played four games before his unfortunate early retirement. In S63, the year that was supposed to be the rebuild (or rather a retool as we were never properly bad) but ended up being a run to the finals, Rift played in a timeshare with Finn Davison, who was the only goalie of the four not to be affiliated with a VHL GM. Davison would man the net in the playoffs, but the two split starts fairly evenly in the regular season. Rift is likely to see a vast majority of starts this season, even if another young active goalie ends up joining the Lynx during the season.
2038 words, 4 week article, boom.

Please link this thread in your update page if you are a winner this month.
We'll start with the 4th place prize of 3,000,000 in cash for the player store﻿, which goes to... @Ty343
Third ﻿﻿Place prize of a week with no required PT for TPE(Free Week 6 TPE﻿) goes to.﻿.. @jRuutu
The Second Place prize of a doubles week (12 TPE on a PT you submit for the week) goes to....﻿﻿﻿ @StamkosFan
The﻿﻿ ﻿First Place prize of 10 Uncapped TPE goes to... @omgitshim

Evan R. Lawson Just Got Popped, In a good way!
Toronto Legion have released that there will be a limited edition pop figure of Evan R. Lawson Available to Fans that attend home games in Toronto. This special edition figure features Lawson in the teams away jersey. Another version with Lawson in his home jersey will be made available at the same time. However the away game version will only be available in limited quantities at home games, while the home jersey version will be available throughout Canada. Rumor has it that as part of this merchandise deal Lawson asked for a handful of both versions so that he could send them home to his family in the States, and of course have few to place in his trophy case.
@diamond_ace This is for you!

I would like him to be so...but I said the same thing for Shayne and Jeff. Neither of them were bad players, but none of them could hold a candle to Robin. I think where I am in work and life though, he actually could be.
More motivation to make a good player, back on a defensemen, which I enjoy more than forwards and 100x more than goalie, and the VHL itself has picked up a lot of steam recently.
Would be interesting, but I wonder what the overall effectiveness would be once you get to higher TPE levels. Have to make sure he's small too, since obviously small defensemen can't play defense and can only play offense.

It’s the way it goes. I only update rosters right before I sim because I don’t have time to update the rosters, wait several hours, and then sim. Everyone is on an even playing field in regards to it as I handle every team the same.

Please link this thread in your update page if you are a winner this month.
We'll start with the 4th place prize of 3,000,000 in cash for the player store﻿, which goes to... @oilmandan
Third ﻿﻿Place prize of a week with no required PT for TPE(Free Week 6 TPE﻿) goes to.﻿..﻿ @SidTheKid87
The Second Place prize of a doubles week (12 TPE on a PT you submit for the week) goes to....﻿﻿﻿﻿ @ShawnGlade
T﻿he﻿﻿ ﻿First Place prize of 10 Uncapped TPE goes to... @Eudaldkp

I was planning to do the uniforms, but once I finished my own team's, I found out none of the other VHLM teams have any unis on their official threads. (Here's Saskatoon's.) So it's just logos for now. I'll probably do the VHL next, unless someone can point me at the other VHLM jerseys. Saskatoon's is already done, and I'd love to share
I'm also including the logos in their own sheets, in case anyone wants to use them. Saskatoon and Oslo definitely came out the best.

Please link this thread in your update page if you are a winner this month.
We'll start with the 4th place prize of 3,000,000 in cash for the player store, which goes to.... @ChaceT
Third ﻿﻿Place prize of a week with no required PT for TPE(Free Week 6 TPE﻿) goes to.﻿.. @Quik
The Second Place prize of a doubles week (12 TPE on a PT you submit for the week) goes to.... @McWolf
The First Place prize of 10 Uncapped TPE goes to.... @Josh.

1. I like wingers since they get to focus on other sides of the game rather than spend tons of time working on face offs. The tpe centres spend on face offs I can use on scoring and other things.
2. Yeah I really don’t care about my contract. To be honest I didn’t read what it was I just signed it.
3. Jasper Conmore obviously. The guys got rock hard abs.
4. Elias dahlberg. He’s a pylon
5. Darude Sandstorm
7. Yeah. As long as I get to play.

1. We have 6 players over 100, not 5. Kyson Blake, JB Rift, Evgeni Komarov, Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen, Katie Warren, Chance Matthews. All of these will cap but Matthews (and Blake is already capped).
2. Technically not at 100 is Brady Stropko, who has existed for 3 days. He's at 97. He will also cap.
3. Gritty (89) and Fizzlebeef (80) will cap easily, and guys like Lynch (72), Draper (56), and Kai (55) should be close enough by the playoffs either way. Luke Allman is also active (but likely won't cap, he's adding a little more slowly than the others, which is fine just means I'll have him twice).
So that's a minimum of 8 guys who will definitely be on 200 at playoffs (Blake, Rift, Komarov, Werbenjagermanjensen, Warren, Stropko, Gritty, Fizzlebeef) considering one of your selling points on Oslo was they'd have 6 or 7. Your selling point on Vegas was 4 forwards - sounds like Blake, Warren, Gritty, and Fizzlebeef to me, plus we're objectively stronger than Vegas on defense after adding Stropko.
(To be completely fair to you, I know it's hard to do these ranking articles, because you don't always know who's active on other teams, and especially with how full my roster is you might see someone like Draper or Kai and not know they're active, compared to Rasputinov or Hill on similar TPE who aren't. That I think is one of the biggest reasons people who aren't in either the LR or the GM Forum are sleeping on us - this roster is built to be the best by playoffs, not by opening day, with a lot of newer active guys. Still not entirely sure it's forgivable for an actual GM not to see it, but for a regular member it's completely fine and I look forward to having the opportunity to prove otherwise.)

"otTaWA iS On tHE oUtsIdE lOOKiNg iN." Yeah right buddy. Let's look at Ottawa's roster here.
Kyson Blake-Roll Fizzlebeef-Katie Warren
Game set match, this is the best line in hockey. Blake is already over the cap, Fizzlebeef is a deadly center who may cap, and my GM player, Warren, is a scoring machine who will cap.If you ever need goals, just reach out to Katie at 1-800-TOP-TITS where she can be found making her living at the back of the god damn net. This line is gonna do a shit ton of scoring lemme tell ya
Matthew Kai-Gritty-Jack Lynch
Kai is a conservative player who could be a steal for Ottawa, Gritty is a scary motherfucker who's got some wheels, and Lynch is a machine who can't stop passing the goddam puck. You want passing and grit? Here ya go
Evgeni Komarov-Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen
Komarov is a freakin goon who will kill you no doubt, and Smitty whatever-the-fuck is a stud who's bound to break out and he's improving fast. Ain't getting past shit.
Gregor Rasputinov-Jonathan Hill
This Gregor guy cannot stop getting those tangy apples all day long. Not to mention his D partner, Hill, is a fucking elite shooter. The longest recorded sniper kill is 3,540 meters but that's because nobody has asked your boy Hill to rip any wristers at ISIS yet.
JB Rift
This kid's fucking jacked. Thick, dense, built whatever you wanna call him he's got it. Legs thicker than my fucking chest, and shoulders wider than my wingspan. Making full use of his frame and with the golden flow to top it off. He dwarfed us all. Bonafide stallion. Brick Wahl

For me its mainly to hangout and i can still have a relevant character while im on welfare.
Discord was also a big factor in me hanging around since it gave me something to do while I was at work. As you may notice i actually am not on the forums much but I'm almost always reachable via discord.
Personally DTF i think you like being here to argue and vent But thats just my opinion in the matter.

If it makes you feel better, @Will dodged mine for whenever he comes to Toronto, too lol
My players have generally been decent, maybe some nostalgia from the original days. But yeah, generally the community. Hell, the fact that I've known @Beketov @Victor @tfong and a few others who are here today for longer than I've known most people in my life today kinda trips me out, now that I think about it haha.